


Rapture

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Series: Intimate With Brokenness [4]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Divergence Probably, Courtly Love, Crisis of Faith, F/F, Femslash, I call this one It's 4:30 AM and Words Don't Work, Knight and Lady, Knights - Freeform, Lesbians for the Sake of Lesbians, Poetic, Post-Canon, Prayer, Religion, Weirdly Religious in General, fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 18:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11407956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: Mae's knighting, and the very un-knightly thoughts of her lady that follow.





	Rapture

**Author's Note:**

> i banged this out in one night after sitting on a half-baked idea and i'm glad that i did because now i can say thank you to all you kind people who gave me such wonderful feedback on my previous works! i haven't written very much maelica and echoes is very new to me, but it's so refreshing to get so much feedback, especially since it's much more than i'm used to accumulating on single-chapter works! thank you to everyone for supporting me!

Boey's knighting is a standard affair. He spends two days and two nights fasting in a vigil, reciting vows to Mother Mila and the crown of Zofia in the tongue of the ancients, and when it's done he eats the customary meal and kneels before the altar and before Celica— _Queen Anthiese,_ really, but to Mae she'll always be Celica, simply Celica— in her crown and her cloak and with the royal rapier in her hand. She can't keep the smile from her eyes when he says the vow to the crown, and when she bids him to rise and then bow she smiles at him with her lips as well.  
  
And Mae's proud of the big lump— really, she is! Boey is practically her brother at this point, so how could she not be? She'll even refrain from teasing him too mercilessly on his special first day of being Ser Boey of Novis, personal honor guard to _her Majesty Queen Anthiese_ — even if she'll tease him a little. But he looks so proud of himself, too, standing in his new knightly cape and glittering pauldrons, saluting to Celica, to their queen, like he was meant to do it his whole life. Mae doesn't have it in her to tease him that much, though she does muss his hair.  
  
Mae's knighting, though— Mae's is _different_. She begins the vigil at midnight, recites the vows, kneels before the altar like Boey did. And there's Celica at the altar but somehow, when Mae is on her knees before the Mother, Celica glows and Mae feels something that a knight probably shouldn't feel.  
  
Celica is radiant— and she always was, but Mae thinks that perhaps the years of battle and bureaucracy have refined the radiance Celica has always had. Something about her shines, glows like she's perpetually lit up around the edges. It's come to Mae's attention that this means she's in love, and if that's so, she's not certain how long she's been in love. It's probably forever, and Mae is perfectly fine with that.  
  
Mae stumbles on her words. Standing in front of the statue of the Mother, Celica glows in gold and scarlet. She licks her lips when she bows her head, listening to the honeyed-sounding words that Celica's tongue makes. Mae is twenty-one, has seen as many battles as a trained soldier, and she is in love with her lady.  
  
Mae rises as Ser Mae of Novis. Boey had described to her a feeling of light awash over his very being, like a hand caressing his soul and rinsing it in blessing that left him raw but pure, forged anew as a blade of Zofia. Mae feels naught but her heart pounding in her ears, blood rushing in her head, her dry throat and sweaty hands and aching knees. She's not sure about a hand caressing her soul or any holiness like that, but when she looks at Celica and kisses her outstretched hand, her dry lips burn. She wishes she'd wet them before the kiss, even if it was merely ceremonial.  
  
(For some reason it feels intimate— Celica's hand upon her head for the blessing, the kiss Mae places upon her queen's hand to signify her devotion— more intimate than it was for Boey. Boey is proud, yes, and he's devoted wholeheartedly to Celica, but when he's the one watching the ceremony, it feels like he's intruding on something private.)  
  
She and Boey celebrate her knighthood with drinks in a tavern in the capitol city. It's been a long time since they traded barbs like teenagers with something to prove, but there's friendly needling between pints of mead and the shared basket of glistening chicken drumsticks covered in honey, and for a moment Mae forgets the rapture that Celica embodies and the extremely un-knightly thoughts that run through her head.  
  
When the basket is empty and Mae is three pints down, the rapture returns like singing in her skull. "I love her," she says to Boey, quietly at first.  
  
"I know," Boey says.  
  
"I love her," Mae says again. There's no fear in her voice, though this is the first she's said it aloud. With unusual solemnity, she stares at the shields decorating the walls of the tavern and sips her mead. She's in love with Celica and suddenly it all feels so incredibly wrong— the weight of her new knighthood and the duties and requirements it comes with clashing with the love she feels. It seems they cannot coexist, because a knight loving her lady is a sin on par with deadly pride.  
  
Perhaps love was a natural development. Perhaps sometime in their years ashore Mae realized that what she feels isn't simple friendship but devotion, wholehearted and consummate— but Mae does everything with her whole self, so she didn't even realize she'd jumped into love with the same gusto with which she carries herself into everything else. (This is when Boey would scold her for not even realizing she'd fallen in love— but Mae doesn't even care. Where would she be if she didn't love Celica? Is her love for Celica not merely a part of who she is? Even if she hadn't noticed it, she embraced it wholeheartedly and let it drive her, fuel her into protecting Celica on the journey she'd joined with, admittedly, very little thought.)  
  
Boey nods. He pats her shoulder when she buries her face in her arms and cries.  
  
Mae doesn't pray often— never has. She's never had the patience to kneel and recite blessings like Celica and Genny were taught to as the daughters of the priory, never had the will or need to memorize scripture and learn hymns. She's learned about and believes in Mother Mila as much as any other mage— which is to say, as much as she was required to to pass her exam. But if any is a time to take up the faith it is now, as a knight of Zofia, and as a young woman aching for one she shouldn't ache for.  
  
But she bows her head before the altar and lets the prayers spill, lets them fall from her mouth like teardrops from her eyes. She asks why and she begs, if Mila is a loving god like what the scriptures want to believe, why her heart aches for the one she shouldn't have? Eventually her knees are stiff and her throat hurts and she has no answer, feels no blessing or bounty or anything of the such.  
  
In the late night in Zofia castle, Mae wanders. Celica dismissed them for the day, desiring an evening alone— so Mae and Boey repsected her wishes as both knights and friends. Boey vanishes somewhere and Mae wanders, and finds herself before the Zofian throne.  
  
She kneels before it. It feels like the right thing to do.  
  
Celica would look perfect perched upon it— her crown and her cape and her blade glistening at her side, flanked by flag-bearers and heralds and soldiers that march beneath no banner but hers. Mae has seen her as a captain, striding the deck of her ship like she was born to be at sea, and she has seen her as a commander, flinging herself into battle and trusting her troops to follow. Mae has yet to see Celica at her full power as a queen, but when she imagines it, it's brilliant. It's rapturous— rapturous in a way that catches her heart in an updraft and holds it, washes it in something that makes her forget being any way but loving her queen.  
  
Mae imagines her hands, calloused at the fingers and blunt at the palms. In her mind Mae takes them in her own, kisses them— gently, then again, harder. She turns them over and kisses her wrists, her palms, every knuckle, every fingertip. She feels the callouses on her skin, feels the weave of magic lingering beneath her skin, presses it to her cheeks as if melting into the feeling. She imagines Celica's hand upon her head, fingers knitting themselves in her hair, her other cupping Mae's chin. Her thumb across Mae's lower lip. Mae's hands on her forward knee as she swears her fealty again and again, as many times as her imaginary Celica asks her to repeat the words.  
  
She imagines more. Swearing allegiance to Celica on her throne, taking the hem of her gown in her hand and kissing it. Her hand, gently as she can, running along the back of Celica's calf and to cup her ankle, pressing a kiss to the fore-facing side. And then up her leg to the inside of her knee, 'til Celica's hand runs through her hair and she'd need to push up the skirt of her gown to kiss further, and she won't because Celica is her queen, not her lover, no matter what makes her cheeks flush when she thinks about it in the dead of night.  
  
The night air rushes over her skin when she remembers the throne is empty. Mae feels the ache in her chest.  
  
"It's late, Mae," someone says and it's her, it's Celica— gods, Mae's made a fool of herself. She stands.  
  
"Celica," she says. "I mean—"  
  
Celica waves a hand. "Just Celica is fine, Mae," she says. The sunburned scars on her cheeks are brown in the low light. "What are you doing here?"  
  
Mae flushes. "Just thinking," she lies.  
  
Celica allows herself the ghost of a smile. "Quite a change of pace."  
  
"Oh, you know, Boey mentioned it and I thought it sounded interesting," Mae says automatically. Her foolish fantasy lingers. She can feel her imaginary Celica's skin beneath her lips. Perhaps subconsciously, she wets them with her tongue.  
  
If Celica notices, she says nothing. "You've been acting strange lately," she comments.  
  
"I hadn't noticed," Mae replies.  
  
"Mae," Celica chastises. She steps closer. Mae's collar heats up. "I may have knighted you, but it was so we could continue being friends despite my being queen. If there's something bothering you, I want you to tell me."  
  
Mae swallows. "Celica," she murmurs. She makes herself chuckle— she laughs so that she will not cry. "Gods, where do I begin?"  
  
"Talk to me." Celica guides her to sit on the steps leading to the throne. With all Mae has learned of being a knight, it feels wrong— but somehow with Celica, the real Celica, with her, it feels right.  
  
Mae's throat feels dry. "It's _you_ , Celica," she says. "I'm in love with _you_. I'm in love with you the way a knight shouldn't be, and it's—" her voice breaks.  
  
Celica's shoulders lower. "Oh, Mae…"  
  
"I'm sorry," Mae chokes out. "Celica, Celica, I'm so sorry— I've _tried_ to keep it in, tried to get rid of it, but I can't."  
  
Their foreheads meet. Celica takes Mae's hand and brings it to her lips. Mae flushes to her hairline.  
  
"I wouldn't want you to keep it in," Celica murmurs. "I'm glad you told me, truly." Her lips are so close to Mae's face that her breath feels warm on Mae's skin, then rapidly cools with condensation.  
  
Mae is the one to pull back. She kisses Celica's hand, and firmly holds her imagination to keep herself from doing something stupid and thoughtless. She shifts into a kneel with Celica sitting on the steps before the throne, as feels right.  
  
Celica's hand rests on her head. She twists her fingers into Mae's hair, cut short since the war with Rigel ended, grown out into locks that stick out from her head and refuse to be tamed with mere combs. All Mae can think of is Celica's thumb on her lower lip and the taste of Celica's breath on her tongue.  
  
Celica kisses her brow, then guides her to her feet. Mae's legs feel like pillars of sand beneath her, weak trunks holding up a foolish heart and a wanting mind. Loving Celica is a sin, and yet, she does.  
  
Mae is alone in the thone room once more, feeling the absence of Celica's light on her arms. She walks back to her bunk in a daze, and doesn't register the tears falling from her cheeks.


End file.
